NHL Breakaway
Designing a scalable digital collectible platform for NHL fans — from foundational UX architecture to live feature evolution.
Role
Lead Product Designer / UI-UX Designer
Scope
UX Strategy · Design Systems · Feature Design · Visual Direction · Developer Handoff
Timeline
Multi-year evolving product (2023 - 2026)
Designing Beyond A Single Feature
NHL Breakaway was not a one-time project or isolated feature release. Over the course of the product’s evolution, I contributed across multiple layers of the experience — from foundational UX planning and navigation structure to visual systems, live feature expansion, marketplace experiences, collectible interactions, and developer-ready design documentation.
Because the platform continuously evolved, the design process was iterative and collaborative rather than linear. My role expanded alongside the product, requiring systems thinking, scalability, and consistency across a growing ecosystem of experiences
Establishing the Experience Framework
Early in development, I helped define the foundational structure of the platform experience, including navigation flows, collectible interactions, progression systems, and marketplace behaviors.
The challenge was designing an interface that balanced:
• collectible excitement
• competitive gameplay
• marketplace functionality
• live-service scalability
As new modes and mechanics were introduced, the experience architecture needed to remain flexible while preserving consistency across the platform
Building A Scalable Visual System
To support rapid feature expansion and developer implementation, I created and maintained reusable UI patterns, component structures, rarity systems, collectible states, and visual interaction rules across the product.
This included responsive card behaviors, collectible rarity frameworks, typography hierarchy, modular UI components, marketplace interaction states, scalable visual treatments for future content drops
The system allowed new experiences and features to be added without rebuilding core interaction patterns from scratch.
Expanding the Platform Through Live Features
As the product matured, I contributed to the design and rollout of new experiences that extended engagement beyond collecting alone.
These features included
• competitive collection-based events
• progression systems
• trade-builder experiences
• marketplace enhancements
• pack-opening flows
• collectible management interfaces
• community and leaderboard interactions
Each release required balancing gameplay clarity, visual excitement, and usability within an already established product ecosystem.
Blending Sports Energy With Modern Usability
A major focus of the visual direction was creating an experience that felt premium, energetic, and authentic to hockey culture while still remaining functional as a product platform.
The visual language combined:
• cinematic presentation
• rarity-driven effects
• collectible-focused storytelling
• motion-inspired layouts
• competitive gaming influences
while maintaining usability across dense information-heavy screens and transactional flows.
OUTCOME
NHL Breakaway evolved into a large-scale interconnected product experience spanning collectibles, progression systems, competitive events, marketplace interactions, and live content drops.
My contributions helped establish a scalable UX and visual foundation that supported ongoing feature development and future expansion across the platform.